Notes

Are You Drinking Your Own Kool-Aid?
The phrase, "Drinking the Kool-Aid" is frequently used whenever a company is so mounted on its own products and services that if fails to think about the needs of its customers or the media. I have worked with companies whose belief within their own offerings and philosophies made them blind to real life, and worse yet, finished up offending the various stakeholders upon whom their success and failure depends.

"Drinking the Kool-Aid" is not a similar thing as "team spirit." Passion for one's organizational vision and mission is a wonderful thing. I'm discussing the C-Suite executive or business proprietor who forgets their company is there to fulfill an unmet need that their audience actually wants.

Think about the Ford Edsel story. The "Edsel" has gone down in history as a colossal marketing faux pas, or failure to gauge what their customers wanted. There are many known reasons for its failure:

The Edsel was created by a very large committee. Time magazine called it, "irrational groupthink." The Edsel designers were centered on designing a vehicle for a segment whose needs had recently been met. They called it, "Edsel," which didn't help either.

They misinterpreted the study. The Ford company spent thousands of dollars on market research. What they didn't know then was that people have a tendency to lie on surveys, telling researchers what they think others, not themselves, want. get more info argue that the survey data was viable, but Ford's interpretation of it was incorrect.

The car was, well, ugly, and had many mechanical flaws. The assembly lines had trouble putting it together. There were complaints about the tail lights. The worst feedback of all, however, was concerning the appearance of the front grille. Among the nicer insults was that it appeared as if "an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon," and there were other snarky anatomical references.

Consider Ford's mistakes when planning your next story pitch to the media.

1. Take your head out of the sand. The media and your market are hungry for interesting stories, educational content and how your unique expertise solves problems. Find ways to provide information, products and services that meet up with the needs of the media, not the fiscal need of your business. Basically, consider the interests of the media outlet you would like to pitch instead of push a story that meets your agenda alone.

2. Target the media that are interested in your industry. One of my editor friends vented the other day at lunch. She covers women's issues and wellness, but daily in her email inbox she gets pr announcements and pitches about animals, auto racing, food and other unrelated topics. She said she used to forward the releases to the correct news desks, but lately, she's just deleting them. Before you send pr announcements or requests for coverage to any media outlet, execute a bit of research throughly first. Find out what they need to do their jobs. It'll be appreciated and yield good karma.

3. Test your product or service thoroughly before rolling it out to the media. The press had a field day with the Edsel. It became the "fun thing to criticize." If there's any fault whatsoever with your product, how it's delivered, or the grade of your customer service, there may be a storm of controversy by means of customer complaints in social media or bad reviews from well-intentioned consumer advocacy reporters. Be sure your offering is a well-oiled machine with a lot of support from your friendly, well-trained employees.

The Edsel was dubbed, "the incorrect car at the wrong time." So, stay away from the Kool-Aid and take care of your stakeholders first.
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